Drinking tumblers, canned goods, or other cylindrical objects are commonly packaged in folded paperboard cartons for display and sale to retail consumers. Such cartons typically consist of a closed sleeve with foldable portions disposed to retain the tumblers or cans in a generally rectangular array of four, six or more. The closed sleeves are formed by folding an elongated paperboard blank to encircle the array of items on four sides, leaving two opposite ends open and various arrangements are employed to retain the objects within the open ends of the sleeve. For example, folded flaps may engage recessed portions of the objects, or may encircle them at one or both ends. One of such former arrangements is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,817,473 to Foster and one of the latter arrangements is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,598,302 to Nowak. These patents are generally illustrative of the prior art and are incorporated herein by reference.
A particular disadvantage inherent in these and other prior art cartons is the substantially complete coverage of the sides of the articles by the folded sleeve, whereby the consumer's view of the contained items is undesirably obstructed and basically limited to the two open ends of the carton. This limited view may further be obstructed by folded locking flaps disposed within the open portions of the carton and about portions of the ends of the articles, as seen in the above-referenced patent to Nowak. Further, the articles in the latter patent are spaced apart by the locking flap portions extending therebetween, resulting in an inefficient increase in overall package size.
Other disadvantages of prior art cartons result from the paperboard blanks from which the cartons are formed. For example, the blanks must be cut and scored to provide appropriate and accurately folded positioning of the sleeve panels and locking flaps to position and retain the articles in the container. This requires precision cutting and involves particular complexity with respect to the flaps when the latter must be formed to fit within recessed portions of the objects contained in the carton. More particularly, such arrangements require the blank to be cut precisely for the contour of the flaps to conform to the contour of the objects such as, for example, the inside contours of the closed ends of cans as disclosed in the above-identified patent to Foster. In addition to the curvature limitation, these flaps cannot lockingly engage an open ended object such as a tumbler, shown in the above mentioned patent to Nowak, whereby locking flaps which encircle such open ended objects have been used to maintain the objects in the carton. Such encircling flaps add greater complexity to the carton blank, as these are generally disposed angularly to the objects and thus take an elliptical form. Additionally, waste is caused by cutting out these forms to accommodate the cross section of the cylinders and, as mentioned above, such flaps obscure visibility of the objects in the carton.
A central panel is commonly provided in cartons for dividing the interior thereof, to enhance visibility of the interior, for locking engagement with the folded locking tabs and/or to serve as a reinforcing brace for the sleeve. Generally, such central panels are cut as interior segments of the sleeve panels. This imparts further complexity to the cutting and scoring requirements for the blank and, while supporting the carton vertically, adds the disadvantage of weakening the carton across the panel from which the bracing portion is cut and removed.